Teaching to the Unexpected

What happens when your class blog on climate change is hit by a climate change skeptic? Are the students armed with the relevant facts as well as the critical thinking skills necessary to respond to a deliberate attempt to derail legitimate science? Do the students recognize the flaws in the arguments of the skeptics; can they identify data that have been discredited, misrepresented, or are simply irrelevant; can they separate the specious from the salient points? This vignette illustrates the importance of both content mastery and cognitive skills for students of Earth science. The Earth Science Literacy Initiative (http://www.coexploration.org/earthscienceliteracy) recently demonstrated that Earth scientists quickly achieve consensus on a short list of essential Earth science topics. The commitment that we as faculty feel for the importance of these subjects mandates their inclusion, in one way or another, in nearly all of our courses. We ask students to demonstrate mastery of these concepts through a variety of assessments, both traditional and non-traditional, and when they meet our expectations we label them successful and send them on. However in the example above – which is a true story - the “test” was not designed by the faculty, nor was it delivered when anyone was expecting to be tested. As such it represents a very authentic assessment, for both the students and the instructor, and the type of experience for which we strive to prepare students. When we consciously “teach to the unexpected” we arm our students with a set of tools that are both powerful and flexible. They are better enabled to respond appropriately, lead appropriately, and innovate in a world of rapidly changing circumstances.